I’m not ashamed to say I’ve had a lot of gamer rage moments in my life. There’s a Crash Bandicoot level called The High Road with an infamously tricky jump that makes my blood boil so hot it’s surely taken years off of my life. I’ve lost Overwatch matches that made me want to give up gaming for good. I played Gettin♎g Over It With Bennett Foddy for about two hours until I decided I’m just not built for that kind of perpetual agony.
But nothing has ever made me as mad as the invitation to lower the difficulty when you di🅘e too many times. Oh the rage I feel when, after repeated attempts to git gud, the game that’s beating my ass up and down the block gives me a🥃 casual “it’s okay champ, let’s take things down a notch, try something more your speed. Why don’t you switch to easy mode?” No, never. Not in one million years. I will struggle and suffer and punish myself until I’m overcome with despair before I let Devil May Cry 3 convince me I’m not good enough.
I used to think this was the pinnacle of video game shame, until I saw the. The meme, created by Rocket League YouTuber Frowzy, depicts a warning message you might receive after going on a lengthy losing streak in Rocket League. “We noticed you lost 8 games in a row within the last hour, dropping 72 MMR,” the pop up says. “We recommend you to take a break and practice your mechanics before going back to competitive.” Even though it's not real, the thought of receiving a warning like this from any game turns me into a seething ball of anger.
The language in the meme is deliberately mean-spirited, designed to jab at the player whe🥃n they’re at their lowest point, but I can easily imagine a game actually using a warning like this in good faith. It has the same intention and rationale as the offer to lower the difficulty, and lots of games still use those too. It’s designed to save the player from themselves, and prevent them from having a negative experience that could color their impression of the game.
I could see Apex Legends, Overwatch, and Pokemon Unite using a pop up like this. It could give someone on a losing streak a moment of pause, forcing them to consciously queue up again instead of instinctively smashing Play to try to win back their lost MMR like a desperate gambler. The problem is that no one, inclu💧ding myself, would ever be deterred. 100 percent of players that need to stop rage queueing would only rage queue harder if they saw a message like this.
I know, because I’m a rage queuer myself. Just as my s⭕tubbornness forces me to ignore the offer to drop the difficulty instead of grinding my face against♔ a difficult boss fight for hours, I can’t help but queue up again no matter how terrible I’m playing. I refuse to end on a loss, and I’ll dig that hole as deep as I have to in order to prove to myself I’m not a worthless piece of trash that can’t win a match to save my life. If I saw a rage queue pop up in real life, there is no chance I would heed its warning. It would only make me madder.
It’s a good meme, but it mak𒆙es me worried that this diabolical concept has now been spoken into existence. Some dev somewhere is going to think this 🗹is a good idea, and I just have to say: please, for my own sanity, don’t.